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Virginia's Home Visiting Programs and TANF
We're excited to share that through the General Assembly's special budget session and Gov. Glenn Youngkin's signing, the home visiting allocation that was in the original GA budget remained untouched!
Here’s a quick snapshot of home visiting funding in this year’s budget:
$9,035,000 TANF (VDSS/Healthy Families Virginia)
$3,232,000 GF (VDH/CHIP of Virginia)
$1,000,000 GF (VDH/Resource Mothers)
$ 600,000 GF (VDSS/Early Impact Virginia)
$ 333,000 GF (VDH/MIECHV)
$ 777,000 NGF (VDH/MIECHV)
$14,977,000 +8%
Your work to stabilize and sustain home visiting services has made a huge difference.
Here's more in our latest Blog on this topic.
Learn more by reading our original Blog on this topic.
About Home Visiting:
Home visiting connects pregnant and parenting families with young children to a trained, family support professional who provides customized coaching and guidance through pregnancy and the early stages of a child’s development. Home visitors help parents understand their role as their child’s first, and most important, teacher. Home visitors help families realize their strengths, and unlock their child’s potential.
Home visiting benefits families, children and the community.
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Moms and babies are healthier
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Children are better prepared for school
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Children are safer
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Families are more self-sufficient
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Home visiting programs save money in the long run
TANF Investment Summary's of 2023-24:
TANF supports Home Visiting Services to 4,574 children (3,970 families) in 123 Virginia communities. Local programs rely on TANF funding to leverage an additional $11,000,000 for direct services.
CHIP of Virginia - $2,400,000
Healthy Families - $9,035,501
Resource Mothers - $1,000,000
Early Impact Virginia - $600,000
You can get updates on advocacy by following our blog!
Scenes from advocacy days
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What is Advocacy?
Advocacy is as basic as speaking on behalf of oneself or others to get something done. For example, as child advocates we seek to ensure that the children in our community have a voice and that their needs are met. This can mean speaking on behalf of children and families to your local community officials, your state-level elected officials, or your federal policy-makers.
Helpful resources include this Advocacy 101 Webinar and this Advocacy Guide.
Why Advocate for Families?
The most obvious reason to be a child and family advocate is that you care. You care about the children in our country and want them to be safe, healthy, and happy. It follows that you want to help ensure that local, state, and federal policy-makers adopt, implement, and maintain important policies and programs that support children families. In order to ensure that these policies and programs are maintained, it is critical to have a sustained vocal and noticeable presence at all levels of policy-making. You can be part of that presence; and therefore, you can be part of the effort to protect our nations children and families.
Decades of research have shown that the creation of positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adversity.
While brain science has helped us understand how adverse childhood experiences cause toxic stress for children, which can lead to poor health outcomes, we also know that positive childhood experiences protect adult mental health and promote healing from toxic stress."